Olivia finished the final line of a pentagram and then lifted her pen from her journal and tried to shake the cramps out of her aching wrist. Teaching was no joke, not even with as few pupils as she had, and teaching magic was proving to be harder work than she’d thought. Her practice in London and her time under Gillespie had given her a head start, but not a particularly large one, and there were some areas that greatly needed filling in.
Protection, for example. Olivia had learned how to guard a room or a person against accidents and even the occasional predator that lurked in the realms beyond, but she’d skimmed lightly over protections against anything someone had purposefully sent. Nobody who could command demons, she’d thought, would have bothered setting them on a medium of no great fame or fortune.
The young men and women who would come from Englefield would be a different story altogether. Mr. Grenville did know protective spells—she was doing research in his library, after all—and would certainly cover anything more advanced, but there would be times when he was away or otherwise unavailable.
Those last two words covered a great deal. Olivia tried not to think about certain possibilities.
Instead, she leaned back in her chair and looked out at the rainy landscape. Rainy without Michael Fairley’s influence this time: either her lecture or an hour washing dishes in the scullery had driven home certain points. Olivia hoped so.
Where powers were concerned, Michael’s control was better than Elizabeth’s, who still tended to react to any alarm by rising half a foot off the floor. However, Michael tended to cut corners in practice, and the incident with Dr. St. John hadn’t been the first time he’d used his talent unfairly. According to his parents, by way of Mr. Grenville, it had been common for the clouds to open whenever Michael’s governess tried to take him on an unwanted walk. So far, there hadn’t been much self-indulgence of that kind at Englefield, but there also hadn’t been much opportunity for it.
Olivia closed her eyes, pentagrams and circles still dancing in front of her lids, and let herself slip into further assessment. Elizabeth’s problem was mostly being afraid of her own shadow. She was getting better, but as soon as she felt herself losing control, she’d grab and clutch and try to shut off all her talent, which usually only made the situation worse. She had nightmares too, with all the loss of control that implied, and Olivia was usually in her room to ground the energy no less than once a week. Elizabeth had never gotten as far off the ground as she’d done that first day, though, and Olivia counted that as a victory.
The older students were coming along well, she thought. William tended to rush things. Michael and Charlotte were also hasty about ceremonial magic, the spells anyone could do, which didn’t surprise Olivia. Growing up able to do one form of magic simply by thinking about it might naturally render one impatient with the sort that took time and intricate planning. Elizabeth was the exception to that rule. She was as careful in spell casting as she couldn’t be at levitation. She had the makings of an excellent magician, as did Arthur, who had an eye for patterns.
Much she knew, Olivia told herself with a small smile. She had all she could do keeping up.
That was no complaint. There’d been a vigor and a challenge about the last month Olivia hadn’t known she’d craved. Teaching and research had been like taking a brisk walk uphill after weeks indoors.
Speaking of that…With a sigh, she turned toward the windows.
The week since her visit to the dressmaker hadn’t often provided her with weather suitable for walking much of anywhere, much less the forest. Olivia had also remembered Mrs. Grenville had told her not to go in without her or Mr. Grenville, and she wasn’t inclined to flout that advice. She’d been a country girl once, but that had been ten years ago, and even then she’d been much more used to farms than forests. So she’d waited.
Neither of the Grenvilles had been available long enough. They generally weren’t. Even now, Mr. Grenville was talking with his steward, and Mrs. Grenville was teaching the older students hand-to-hand combat in the ballroom. One could hear the shouts and thumps from fully three rooms away. The younger students, who would have their turn in an hour, were upstairs studying their normal lessons.
Absently, Olivia put aside the book from which she’d been taking notes and turned back to the shelves to retrieve another. Spirits and Omens of Our Grandfathers’ Time. She’d seen the title a few times before and had mostly looked over it on her way to something more substantial.
The book was no more than thirty years old and came complete with colored illustrations. It did not, Olivia quickly discovered, have an index, though the authors had been considerate enough to lump related incidents together. She idly flipped the pages past descriptions of black dogs and phantom music and paused at a section on ravens.
According to the authors, in a Greek myth, Apollo had turned the then-white raven’s feathers black because it had informed him of his inamorata’s faithlessness. Not much useful information there, except perhaps not to bring bad news to the ancient gods. She wondered what Apollo had thought the poor beast should have done, and flipped back a page.
Oh. Peck out the young man’s eyes.
Lovely.
She looked up as the door opened. Dr. St. John stepped inside, then frowned as he saw her. Probably surprise, judging by his expression, though one never could tell with the man.
Oh well. She’d made good progress today, it was vile outside, and she wasn’t going to let St. John put her in a bad mood.
“Your patron god,” she said, thinking of the myth, “does not strike me as much of a gentleman.”
***
It wasn’t fair, Gareth thought. He’d spent a useful morning filling out records and arranging new equipment in his office, he’d come into the library to reward himself with a novel, and he’d found Mrs. Brightmore with the lamplight gold on her fair skin, looking like some Pre-Raphaelite’s idea of the Spirit of Knowledge, and talking like a madwoman.
A man of his age should have been able to expect some order in his life.
“Pardon?” he asked. “Patron god?”
“Apollo,” Mrs. Brightmore said and then paused. Gareth noticed she pursed her lips just a little when she thought. It drew a man’s attention, made him consider the shape of her mouth and the slight fullness of her underlip. She was probably doing it on purpose. “I believe he’s in the Hippocratic Oath,” she continued.
“Oh. Probably. Greek gods aren’t really the memorable part. Nor are they generally gentlemen, if memory serves.” Gareth took a few steps closer to the desk. Now that he was here, it wouldn’t do to retreat.
“No. That’s why—” Mrs. Brightmore abruptly stopped herself. Gareth watched a blush spread itself up her neck and over her face. She cleared her throat. “I do hope I’m not in your way.”
“Not at all. I came to borrow some reading material. Something a little more lighthearted than yours,” he said, casting a quick glance over the books at Mrs. Brightmore’s elbow. A small, leather-bound journal lay on top of a much larger, much-older-looking book. Gareth couldn’t make out the title, and he didn’t know that he wanted to. The book in front of her was about omens and spirits. “Not seeing any black dogs at crossroads, I hope?”
“No, I haven’t seen anything. I’d heard a story or two in the village, but it’s probably nothing.” She talked quickly. Other than that, there was no sign of relief that he’d moved on.
“Mm,” Gareth said. He put a hand on the desk, letting it support his weight without leaning too obviously. “‘That’s why’ what?”
Mrs. Brightmore bit her lip and was silent for a moment. She didn’t pretend ignorance, though. He had to grant her that. “It’s only a theory,” she said, “and it’s not…some people could find it a bit insulting. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“And yet you did,” he said, “and now I’m curious.”
It wasn’t entirely embarrassment coloring her face now. Her eyes flashed. “I won’t have you stalking off in offense if I tell you, sir,” she said. “Not when I have to work with you. Or if you do, I won’t have you blame me for it.”
“I promise,” he said, holding up a hand in a reassuring gesture, “I won’t take it badly.”
Mrs. Brightmore relaxed a little, though there was still a certain wariness about her when she spoke. “In that first class, Charlotte asked why certain people could do magic at will. I said there were a few theories on the subject.”
“So I recall.”
“One of them, and I have reason to think it’s true, is those people are somehow connected to…other beings.” She spread her hands in vague illustration and absently began to rub one of her wrists as she spoke. “Beings from places that follow different rules, or none.”
“Fairies?” Gareth lifted an eyebrow.
“Or angels. Or gods. Beings who call themselves gods, at any rate. All of them have supposedly had the appropriate sorts of…association with humanity. The, um, blessings in fairy tales, for instance.”
“Or the, ah, seductions in myth?” Gareth mimicked her hesitation and let a smile drift across his mouth. “I’m a grown man, you know. I’m not going to faint.”
“Just challenge me to pistols at dawn, perhaps.” Her fingers moved from her wrist to her hand, and she winced.
“Are you all right?”
“Hmm? Oh. Fine.” Mrs. Brightmore blinked up at him. “Thank you,” she added, sounding less grudging than surprised. Clearly she hadn’t expected his concern, which Gareth found unexpectedly annoying.
“Let me see,” he said.
“It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been writing for a while.”
Gareth stepped around the desk to her side. “They do pay me for something. Give me your hand. I promise you’ll have it back afterward.”
The implied challenge did the trick. She extended her hand quickly and held very still as Gareth took it. He might have said something about that, but the feeling of her small, smooth palm beneath his thumb was more distracting than he’d thought. Flesh and blood, he told himself. Nothing out of the ordinary here. No reason warmth should spread from their linked hands; no reason to relish each circle his thumb made on her palm.
“So,” he said, “my connection to Apollo might not be just a symbol?”
“Ah.” Mrs. Brightmore’s voice was a little distracted, a touch breathless. “Perhaps. Or Airmed for the Celts, or beings, perhaps a being, using those names.” Gareth pressed harder for a moment, and her eyelids drifted half-closed. “None of it’s very clear yet. Probably, um, not Raphael, not if we’re talking descent.”
“Probably not,” Gareth agreed. He’d stepped a little forward at some point, he noticed now, and he was looking down at the top of her head. There were strands of red and blonde in her chestnut hair, and a few that were almost black. His fingers moved down to her wrist, tracing lines and then circles over the tense muscles there. “Did you come up with this theory yourself?”
Mrs. Brightmore shook her head slowly. “No, I—had it explained to me. And then I studied considerably.”
She had done that. There was a callus on her right forefinger where she would hold a pen. There were the ink stains. There were the books. “Ah.”
Gareth thought if he reached out his free hand he could just touch the side of her face, tilt her chin up, perhaps, so she was looking at him with those rich brown eyes. Her skin would be like silk beneath his fingertips.
Mrs. Brightmore’s breath might have been quicker now, or Gareth might simply have been noticing the way her breasts rose and fell. They were easy to notice. Even in her plain skirt and shirtwaist the woman had the sort of lush curves no man would find easy to ignore. Perhaps it was just his perception.
All the same, under his fingers, he thought he felt the pulse in her wrist speed up. Mrs. Brightmore did look up at him then, and her eyes were dark. Her lips parted a little.
“I think that should suffice for any further studying,” Gareth said. He dropped her hand and stepped back quickly. “I assume you have quite a bit of it ahead.”
“Ah,” she said. In both distraction and acceptance, her tone was a mirror of Gareth’s from a moment before, only with slightly more surprise. Did she sound disappointed too? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t want to tell.
“I won’t intrude on your time any longer,” he said, his voice thicker than he would have liked. He turned away and heard her take a breath.
Fabric rustled.
Gareth didn’t stay to hear any more.